System and method for video gaming tournament

ABSTRACT

The invention described herein includes a method. The method includes, on a plurality of video gaming machines conducting a video card game tournament; wherein the tournament lasts for a plurality of hands; each hand played includes a bet; each hand must be played within a period of time such that the total tournament lasts a period of time that is not unlimited; and the player keeps all winnings from the hands.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation in part under 35 U.S.C. 111(a) ofInternational Application No. PCT/US2005/015412 filed on May 4, 2005 andpublished on Nov. 24, 2005 as WO 2005/110563 A2, which claims thebenefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/569,274 filed May 7,2004. These applications are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The subject matter of the inventions described herein relates generallyto gaming, and more particularly to gaming machines.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Slot machines are a popular mainstay of casino gambling. Maintaining andgrowing this popularity depends on continuously offering players newgames or features. Progressive jackpots are one such way to increaseinterest in slot machines and add another element of excitement to slotplay. Another approach is to allow slot players to enter tournaments inwhich the players can enter and compete in the tournament played on eachplayer's respective slot machine. Slot tournaments thus add an excitingoption for players and potentially the house cut of tournament fees mayresult in additional revenue for casino owners.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a perspective view of a gaming machine employed inthe system of the invention described herein.

FIG. 2A illustrates a sequence embodiment of the invention describedherein.

FIG. 2B illustrates a sequence embodiment of the invention describedherein.

FIG. 2C illustrates a sequence embodiment of the invention describedherein.

FIG. 2D illustrates a sequence embodiment of the invention describedherein.

FIG. 2E illustrates a sequence embodiment of the invention describedherein.

FIG. 2F illustrates a sequence embodiment of the invention describedherein.

FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic view of one tournament embodiment of theinvention described herein.

FIG. 4 illustrates a class diagram of one tournament embodiment of theinvention described herein.

FIG. 5 illustrates a sequence diagram of one tournament embodiment ofthe invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTIVE SUBJECT MATTER

In the following description of some embodiments of the presentinvention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form apart hereof, and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specificembodiments of the present invention which may be practiced. In thedrawings, like numerals describe substantially similar componentsthroughout the several views. These embodiments are described insufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice thepresent invention. Other embodiments may be utilized and structural,logical, and electrical changes may be made without departing from thescope of the present invention. The following detailed description isnot to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the presentinvention is defined only by the appended claims, along with the fullscope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

One example embodiment of a method according to the inventive subjectmatter herein provides a tournament played on video poker slot machines.For example, the tournament may be offered to two or more video slotplayers in a casino. The video slot machines offering the tournamentmay, in one example configuration, communicate with a tournament serversystem that coordinates and runs the tournament. In anotherconfiguration, the video slot machines may be configured so as tooperate in a peer to peer mode wherein a server is not required to runthe tournament.

Any video poker or other slot machine may be adapted for use intournament play in accordance with the principles of the inventivesubject matter disclosed herein. One example of a video poker machinereadily suitable for tournament play in accordance with certainprinciples of the subject matter herein is a five card draw video pokergame. As illustrated in FIG. 1, this video casino game 100 entailsdealing a player five cards that are displayed on the game video display110. Using touch screen discard buttons 112 a, 112 b, 112 c, 112 d or112 e, the player can discard one or more of these cards and “draw” newones off the deck.

According to one embodiment of the inventive subject matter disclosedherein, the following rules of play are used to conduct a tournament ona video poker casino game such as, but not limited to, a five card drawpoker game:

-   -   The tournament lasts for ten (10) poker hands.    -   Each hand is played at max bet of a specified amount, such as        five coins.    -   Each hand must be played within a specified period of time, such        as 15 seconds. In this example the total tournament would last        for approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds.    -   Each player keeps all winnings from his or her hands.    -   At the end of the ten poker hands, the player with the highest        amount won during the ten hands wins the tournament and the        tournament prize.

According to one example embodiment, a general sequence of operation forthe tournament may proceed as illustrated in FIGS. 2A-2F. Othersequences accomplishing the same general effect are also possible foralternate embodiments. The sequence may begin with a player playing the“normal” game 200 on a video poker game, such as five card draw. Asillustrated in FIG. 2A, a message 202 may appear on the screen while theplayer plays the normal game. The message may be, for example:“Tournament starts in 2 minutes. Press JOIN or CANCEL to continueplaying.” If the player does not press either button the message willremain on the screen until the tournament starts. If the player pressesCANCEL the message is removed from the display. If the player pressesJOIN, a message 204 window appears. “Tournament fee $xx. Press JOINbutton or CANCEL to return to game,” as illustrated in FIG. 2B. Where xxis equal to ten hands at max bet for the tournament denomination. If theplayer presses JOIN, one of the two things will occur: If the player hassufficient funds in the credit meter, then the tournament fee issubtracted from the credit meter and escrowed by the tournament server(described below). If not, then a message appears instructing the playerto insert additional money to Join or press CANCEL to return to game.

Once the tournament fee is paid a message window 206 appears thatinforms the player of their player number/ID, as illustrated in FIG. 2C.One minute prior to the tournament a reminder message appears. As shownin FIG. 2D, when the tournament starts the escrowed tournament fee isreturned to the player's credit meter 208 and a scoreboard 210 appearson the screen that shows the player's score followed by a ranking of thetop eight players in the tournament. As each hand is dealt, the numberof remaining hands is displayed in a message bar 212. The same cards aredealt to all participants. Referring now to FIG. 2E, when the deal iscomplete, the ‘Hold’ buttons behind the cards are enabled and the‘Ready’ button 214 is enabled. Players play the normal poker game byselecting cards to hold, such as card 216. When a player is satisfiedwith their selection they can press READY to allow the game to proceed.When all players have pressed READY the game continues. If the timeremaining for the hand runs out, then the game proceeds without theplayer pressing the READY button. At the end of each hand, the scoresare tallied and the player rankings on the scoreboard are updated. Atthe end of 10 hands, the player with the highest total is awarded theprize, and a message 218 is displayed announcing the win, as shown inFIG. 2F. According to still another example embodiment, instead of eachplayer receiving all the same cards, each player may randomly receive adifferent wild card dealt to their hand, adding an additional level ofexcitement and chance to the game. According to another exampleembodiment, the rules may allow a player to discard all cards in theirhand, and request five new cards.

According to yet another example embodiment, in the event of a tiebetween players in the tournament, the tie may be broken by a randomlygenerated event, such as the draw of a card to each player tied, withhigh card breaking the tie, or there may be a simulated spinning of diceon the display, with the player with the highest total on the dicewinning the tie.

In still another example embodiment, the payout table on each of thegames participating in the tournament may be same, that is, each playerwins the same amount for the same hand. Alternatively, however, one ormore of the games may have a different payout table from the others foreach hand. Different players may thus win different amounts with thesame hands. In such embodiments, the winner of the tournament may bedetermined not based on which player wins the most, but rather on ascoring system based on which player achieves the best collection ofpoker hands based on all the rounds. According to still another exampleembodiment, a different pay table may be used for each player in thetournament to set the prize for the tournament. Thus, each player in agiven tournament could potentially win a different prize amountdepending on which machine they are playing, or one or more otherfactors.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, one embodiment 300 of the poker tournamentgame provides for an independent application 302 that runs on a centralserver 304 and interacts with a number of gaming terminals 306. Thenumber of terminals is not fixed and may vary from one tournament to thenext. According to one embodiment, the poker tournament communicatesonly with the gaming terminal coordinator 308 (e.g. CGamingTerminaldescribed below) and has no direct interaction with or knowledge of theinternal components that comprise the gaming terminal application.Coordinator 308 interacts with the gaming terminal bank 310 andpresentation services 312.

One embodiment of a software design for the above described game isillustrated in the class diagram of FIG. 4. As shown in FIG. 4, thepoker tournament (CPokerTournament 402) is derived from CService 404.Therefore, it has a thread of execution 404 a, a socket 404 b and atimer 404 c. The rules require that the same cards are dealt to allparticipants. To accomplish this, CPokerTournament 402 performs in therole of centralized dealer and contains a StandardDeck 403 of 52 cards.The deck is shuffled before each hand is dealt. CPokerTournament 402also tracks player rankings with CRankMap 411. According to one exampleembodiment, a random draw may be performed, and displayed to theplayers, in order to generate the common deck for use in the hand.CTournamentTerminal 406 is responsible for conducting an instance of thetournament with an individual Gaming Terminal through CGamingTerminal409. It is responsible for the behavior of the game and for interfacewith the player. CTournamentTerminal 406 contains the PokerHand 407 foran individual terminal and tracks the score for that terminal.CTournamentTerminal 406 contains a Bank API 408 and a Presentation API410, which are proxy classes for the Bank and the display, respectively.

Note that CTournamentTerminal 406 is NOT a service and does not have aseparate thread of execution. Tournament terminals are contained by thepoker tournament and run within its thread. Also note that there may bean arbitrary number of participants in each tournament. CPokerTournament402 instantiates a CTournamentTerminal 406 object for each gamingterminal that is online when the tournament invitations are issued.These objects exist for the life of the tournament and are destroyedwhen the tournament is complete. CPokerTournament 402 receives ISCmessages through its socket. Most messages are routed to the individualtournament terminal objects for processing. The poker tournament service(embodied in CPokerTournament 402) is intended to be a persistentapplication that runs continuously on a central server such as a sitecontroller. The service initiates tournaments at periodic intervals orat specific times.

Referring now to the sequence diagram of FIG. 5, the start-up will bedescribed. Although only one gaming terminal is shown in the figure, thesequence of operation will apply to any number of terminals. Two minutesand 30 seconds prior to the start of the tournament, CPokerTournament402 broadcasts a Request Service message 502 to all Gaming Terminals.Each Gaming Terminal that is online when the broadcast is sent willrespond with a Request Service Response message 504. This messageconveys the Gaming Terminal's network address back to the TournamentServer. For each Gaming Terminal that responds, CPokerTournament 402constructs a corresponding CTournamentTerminal 406 object. Two minutesprior to the start of the tournament, CPokerTournament calls theSendInvitation( ) method 506 of each Tournament terminal. TournamentTerminal 406 performs some internal initialization and commands theGaming Terminal to load the invitation dialog by calling the Load( )method 508 in the Presentation API.

CPresentationAPI 410 constructs and sends a Load command message 510 tothe Gaming Terminal. CGamingTerminal 409 routes the message 512 to thePresentation Service (CNxt_PS 514). The Presentation Service loads thespecified script and displays the invitation. Sometime later, the playerpresses the JOIN button. The Presentation Service constructs and sends aPO Response message 516 to the Gaming Terminal. The message indicatesthat the JOIN button has been pressed. The Gaming Terminal routes themessage 518 to CPokerTournament 402.

According to still another example embodiment, instead of aclient-server architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture may be employed.In such an embodiment, one or more machines may periodically issue aninvitation to other peers to join a tournament. The tournament may beoperated by one of the peers, or by sharing the responsibility andfunctions required to operate the tournament among the peers enteredinto the tournament.

Thus, there has been described above various example embodiments of atournament game for gaming terminals such as, but not limited to, videopoker games.

1. A method comprising: on a plurality of video gaming machines conducting a video card game tournament; wherein the tournament lasts for a plurality of hands; each hand played includes a bet; each hand must be played within a period of time such that the total tournament lasts a period of time that is not unlimited; and the player keeps all winnings from the hands.
 2. A method comprising: on a video gaming machine displaying a message offering a player an opportunity to join a card game tournament; if the player elects to join the tournament collecting a tournament fee from the player; playing two or more rounds of the tournament, wherein, in each round: a) tournament players are each dealt a poker hand wherein each player receives the same cards in their hand; b) each tournament player my hold or discard different ones of the cards in a hand, wherein the player is provided a limited period of time in which to make the decision to hold or discard; c) dealing additional cards to each player that has discarded one or more cards; d) each tournament player achieves an outcome in each round that is dependent on the cards the player holds or discards; and following completion of the tournament rounds, determining a winning tournament player based on one or more criteria.
 3. A method comprising: on a video gaming machine displaying a message offering a player an opportunity to join a card game tournament; if the player elects to join the tournament collecting a tournament fee from the player; playing two or more rounds of the tournament, wherein, in each round: a) tournament players are each dealt a hand of cards wherein each player receives the same cards in their hand; b) each tournament player my hold or discard all or different ones of the cards in a hand; c) each tournament player achieves an outcome in each round that is dependent on the cards the player holds or discards; and following completion of the tournament rounds, determining a winning tournament player based on one or more criteria.
 4. A method comprising: on a video gaming machine displaying a message offering a player an opportunity to join a tournament played on the video gaming machine; if the player elects to join the tournament collecting a tournament fee from the player; playing two or more rounds of the tournament, wherein, in each round: a) tournament players each play their own respective game wherein the outcome of each game is dependent on a player's choices in their respective game; b) following completion of the tournament rounds, determining a winning tournament player based on one or more criteria.
 5. A method according to claim 4 further comprising on a video casino game having a video display and a credit meter, providing a video poker game for play by a player:
 6. A method according to claim 4 further comprising while the player is playing the video poker game, displaying a message on the display of the video game offering the player an opportunity to play in a tournament.
 7. A method according to claim 4 further comprising allowing the player to enter the tournament by use of an input to the video casino game;
 8. A method according to claim 4 further comprising wherein the offer to join the tournament has deadline;
 9. A method according to claim 4 further comprising if the player elects to participate in the tournament, displaying a message on the casino game display requesting payment of a tournament fee;
 10. A method according to claim 4 further comprising if the player has sufficient funds in the credit meter, subtracting the tournament fee from the credit meter and escrowing it in a tournament server;
 11. A method according to claim 4 further comprising if the player does not have sufficient funds, displaying a message instructing the player to insert additional money to enter the tournament, or allowing the player to return the video poker game by entering a selection canceling the player's entry into the tournament;
 12. A method according to claim 4 further comprising if the player successfully enters the tournament, displaying a message on the video casino game informing the player of a player identification for the player;
 13. A method according to claim 4 further comprising returning the escrowed tournament fee to the player's credit meter and displaying a scoreboard on the screen that shows the player's score followed by a ranking of the top eight players in the tournament;
 14. A method according to claim 4 further comprising as each hand in the tournament is dealt, displaying the number of remaining hands on the video casino game display
 15. A method according to claim 4 further comprising dealing the same cards to all participants in the tournament;
 16. A method according to claim 4 further comprising when the deal is complete, enabling ‘Hold’ buttons behind the cards and enabling a ‘Ready’ button on the video casino game;
 17. A method according to claim 4 further comprising the player playing the poker game by selecting none or some cards to hold;
 18. A method according to claim 4 further comprising a player pressing the READY button to allow the game to proceed;
 19. A method according to claim 4 further comprising when all players have pressed READY the game continues;
 20. A method according to claim 4 further comprising if the time remaining for the hand runs out, then the game proceeds without the player pressing the READY button;
 21. A method according to claim 4 further comprising at the end of each hand, the scores are tallied and the player rankings on the scoreboard are updated; and
 22. A method according to claim 4 further comprising at the end of a number of hands, the player with the highest total is awarded the prize. 